


More Than Genetic Material

by Amyreadsandstresses



Series: The Child Verse [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Drama, Family Issues, Gen, Hurt Sherlock Holmes, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Minor Character Death, Parent Sherlock, Parentlock, Pre-Canon, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock Holmes Has a Heart, Sherlock Holmes and Drug Use, Sherlock Holmes is a Bit Not Good, Sherlock is a Good Parent, Sherlock is a Mess, Sherlock is trying, Sherlock's Past, Single Parent Sherlock, Unilock, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:01:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29001888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amyreadsandstresses/pseuds/Amyreadsandstresses
Summary: Dad, the word made the itch in his veins grow; the crooks of his elbows burning in their calling to him, their begging for an old lover. Dad, dad, dad. The word was more than genetic material, it was more than a sperm donation or a household dictator, the likes his own had been. No, dad meant bedtime stories and school lunches, museum visits, trips to the cinema, hugs, caring. He wasn’t the kind to care. Love was a weakness.Sherlock is struggling through withdrawal, trying to come to terms with the fact that his life has now changed forever, that he has a child, that he has to get clean, that it's time to move on. But maybe, if he's very lucky, he won't have to do it alone.Before "The world was ending" but after "The child he had made."Could stand alone, I think, but better with the other parts.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character, Past Sherlock Holmes/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Child Verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2118003
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	More Than Genetic Material

**Author's Note:**

> Part 2 of The Chil Verse, set a few weeks before "The world was ending", I think it could stand alone if you want, but it would make more sense with the other parts.  
> Hope you like it :) and thank you for reading.
> 
> Sadly, I don't own Sherlock. I sadly don't own Sherlock. But I do own Bethany Holmes, Gina, and Jack; as well as the plot.  
> Please don't repost this fic anywhere without my permission and credit.
> 
> PS: After this one-shot, we will start seeing Sherlock standing on his own more, so don't despair. The next one might turn out a bit happier too, at least that's my plan, we'll see if the muse cooperates.

His blood burned. Everything burned, even his hair, no matter that was scientifically impossible, it was burning, he was sure of it. Sherlock was being burnt alive and there was nothing he could do other than lay on the cold tile bathroom floor, keeping to his misery. 

He’d just finished with yet another bout of vomiting, his lungs and throat aching, and was now keeping his eyes closed as his body attempted to fight off the fever that had taken over his veins. As usual, he reminded himself just why Isabel had stayed with him the first time he’d done this, why he was in another flat now other than his own. He knew, he always knew why there had to be someone with him, why he should cut off this wretched affair with his favourite seven percent solution, why he shouldn’t do this anymore; because withdrawal felt like dying and one of these days it might just end that way. Except it couldn’t, not anymore, not with the creature… with Beth there.

He was a _father_. God, what a horrid thought it was. Someone like him shouldn’t have a child, not when he was nineteen, and made a habit of getting completely off his tits whenever possible. Not when he had spent the first couple of weeks of that child’s life drowning in vodka and destroying his sinuses. Not when he was a disgusting mass of sickness on another woman’s bathroom floor.

Speaking of said woman.

There was a knock at the door, quiet and slow, be it to keep him or The Child at peace he wasn’t sure. 

Another knock.

“What?” he snapped, or as close to it as he could with his throat ran ragged.

“May I come in?” Gina’s voice was careful, as always. Hesitant as it had been since his arrival several days ago. As if he would turn around and bite her carotid off at any given opportunity. To be completely fair, at current time he probably would. He settled for a growl.

“It’s your home.” 

A sigh at the other side of the door made him open his eyes, just a bit. The door opened slowly, Gina’s dark brown hair peeking in through the minute crack.

“Do you need anything?” her voice was uncertain, yet kind. She was always kind, it was

rather annoying.

“Death.” He deadpanned, closing his eyes again.

“Not funny.” For the first time since he’d met her, she sounded mad. A properly angry Gina was an unknown sight to him, as it was for most, he suspected. She’d always been the boring one out of their little “club” if it could even be called that. What did you call a group of college kids that got together for the sake of joint reckless driving and sensory inhibition?   


“Sorry.” He muttered; he didn’t particularly like Gina, no; but Isabel had, and Isabel did always insist on him being polite to her. A rather difficult activity given the shocked silence that followed his attempt at manners; he didn’t need to see her to know there was disbelief written all over Gina’s features. “I do have that word in my vocabulary, you know?”

“Right, yeah, of course you do. I’d just never heard you apologize before.” Oddly enough, she sounded almost amused. Sherlock opened his eyes again, just enough to see the slight smile painted on her lips. Interesting. 

“Well, don’t think it’s happening again any time soon.” He deliberately curled his face into the pique of unpleasant, venom in his voice. To his surprise, Gina huffed a laugh.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” She winked at him, coming into the bathroom fully and leaning on the white wall.

Quite unexpectedly, she seemed… comfortable standing by the wall, she’d never been comfortable around him before. Though he supposed whatever sight he made right now wasn’t a particularly threatening one. He opened his mouth to point out her change in behavior, hopefully making her entertainingly uncomfortable when an eardrum-blasting wail resounded all over the flat, building the headache that had already been there until it felt like his left eye socket was bound to explode. 

“Oh, for God’s sake” he growled, raising his hands to cover his eyes and turning his face deeper into the cool floor beneath him.

“She’s just a baby, babies cry” she still sounded amused, not that it was entertaining anymore; it was hateful. He would physically throw her out of the room if he could, at this point all he wanted was to suffer in peace. No meddling women, no loud children. _God_ , his was a remarkably loud one. 

“I’m painfully aware” Sherlock gritted his teeth. He wanted some, desperately.

“Jack will see to her.” If she was attempting reassurance, then she was failing miserably at it; he knew why she was really here. Why she had insisted on him staying, why she wanted to be in the room with him. She was watching him, keeping him in sight, judging and measuring, possibly even laughing at his pathetic circumstances. She could laugh, of course, she still had her life.

“As long as you see to me?” Sherlock tried to sit up, but the flares up his abdomen kept him  in place. He settled for baring his teeth. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Clearly you do.” Gina wasn’t amused anymore. Her eyes were cold as they landed on him, running up and down his body, openly studying him, and once she was done with her inspection she looked for his eyes and cocked an eyebrow in his direction to state the results of her examination. Non-satisfactory. 

“Piss off.” He felt heat run up his neck and over his cheeks. The fever, of course, nothing more.

“Nope, sorry. This is my flat and I say I’m staying here until you can lift your head on your own.” Was she… learning from him? That tone had been remarkably his own, down to the disapproving scowl, so unlike the friendly teasing that often came out of the woman’s mouth. 

“You’re a despicable woman, did you know?” he frowned her way, trying to read her. His observational skills were highly impaired by what was happening in his transport, however, and what little he could see didn’t make any sense to him. Concern, sadness, fear, anger. Except for the last one, the only people who had ever directed the other three at him had been Mycroft and Sabel. Never Gina, she was supposed to dislike him. Perhaps it was him, he’d always struggled with emotional reactions, after all. _Sentiment_.

“It’s a gift” she smiled at him, a very fake smile, and slid down the wall until she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, her back to the wall.

Gina looked away from him then, locking her eyes on the bathtub beside him. He tried studying her better, he’d hardly ever bothered to do so before. Sabel had loved this one, he knew that. Not that he’d ever understood it, Isabel had been remarkable, a box of astonishing contradictions, an excellent puzzle. Gina wasn’t, not as far as he had seen. And yet… and yet, he was the one shaking on the floor. Had he underestimated her? Or was this new? 

Sherlock decided that was a problem for another day when the child started screaming bloody murder, no longer the typical wails. Could the neighbors feel tempted to call someone if she didn’t shut up? With him still detoxing that would not be the best of outcomes. The last thing he needed now was Social Services on his trail. 

“What’s it like?” he looked at her, surprised. He hadn't expected her to make any more semblance of a conversation, “having a baby.”

He thought of saying something cutting, just bad enough for her to stop talking to him and leave. Perhaps a “ _you can keep her if you want_ ” or a “ _why? expecting one?_ ” 

Somehow, he couldn’t. Probably the sickness sucking too much of his energy. He would be back in shape soon enough and then he would think of a better line. Then he’d be out of that ridiculous flat and on his own… or almost, anyhow. But in the meantime,

“Not what I expected” it was true enough, as truthful as he was willing to be. He hadn’t expected something good, he’d always known he would be bad at it, he had just expected Sabel to even the scale. He hadn’t expected good, but he hadn't expected this bad either. 

“No I suppose not,” as if reading his mind, she sent a sad smile his way and lifted her shoulder, “but then, nothing really is right now, is it?”

He limited himself to a humm. Turning and letting the cold spread through his back, he kept his eyes on the roof, counting the little cracks across it. As a child, whenever he got bored or overwhelmed, he would lay on his back just like this and search the roofs for imperfections; he had done it right in the middle of hallways more than once, it had driven his mother mad. She had pulled him to his feet and dragged him to his father’s study for a proper scolding,  not that the man ever delivered, of course. No, his father had, at most, lifted an eyebrow and gone back to his work. Mycroft would drag him against the wall whenever he stumbled upon a laying Sherlock, his mother was usually calmer if he wasn’t directly in the way. 

He’d told that story to Isabel once, they’d promised not to drag their children like that, even if they were laying on the steps. _Except if they’re on the road,_ had been her one condition, it seemed logical enough so he’d let it be. 

He had wondered what kind of parent he would be, once she told him, he had wondered every day. So far, the answer was: not a very good one. Hardly a parent at all. Isabel would have been far better. She would have made it fun, she usually did. Now it was just him, a crying child, and the pathetic couple sharing a flat with him. Isabel would have made it better. 

“I’m sorry about Sabel.” He hadn’t meant to say it, the words had merely stumbled out of his lips, hanging over the room.

“Me too.” 

“You were closer to her than me.”

“In a way, but you lost her too. We all did, even that little one out there” he heard more than saw her eyes well up, her throat close; from the corner of his eye, he watched Gina shake her head once, violently as if pushing a thought away. He could understand the sentiment. “Especially Beth.”

His chest constricted at the name. The Child. They had decided it in the hospital, only a few hours before the world turned upside down. He liked it, it was a good name. Somehow, it seemed that liking his daughter’s name wasn’t enough for him to do this right. The child he hadn't asked for, the one he had once hoped wouldn’t be born. It was terrible, Isabel would have hated him had he ever told her; but there had been a time, nearly a year ago, that he had wished for a swift end. Now he wondered if it wouldn’t have been better. 

“How am I supposed to raise a child I didn’t even want, a child I couldn't stay sober for.”

“You’ll get clean, and you’ll stay that way now. It was a stumble, nothing more.” She had such conviction, how he had earned it, he had no idea. He certainly wasn’t as sure as she  seemed to be. 

“And if it isn’t?” Sherlock tried to keep his voice from wavering, tried to pretend his heart wasn’t beating like some wild bird in his chest. Could he start screaming bloody murder too? Father and daughter, decaying in unison, perhaps it would be a good bonding experiment. 

“It has to be” he could sense Gina looking at him now, willing him to turn her way; he closed his eyes instead. “Want it or not, ready or not, you’re her dad and she needs you sober.”

_Dad_ , the word made the itch in his veins grow; the crooks of his elbows burning in their calling to him, their begging for an old lover. _Dad, dad, dad_. The word was more than genetic material, it was more than a sperm donation or a household dictator, the likes his own had been. No, dad meant bedtime stories and school lunches, museum visits, trips to the cinema, hugs, caring. He wasn’t the kind to care. Love was a weakness, if Redbeard had taught him anything, it was that. If the past two years should have settled something, it was that. Caring isn’t an advantage. Mycroft had said it best once, years ago, while a small boy cried his heart out at the loss of a red setter. He couldn’t be a dad, there were no books for him to study, no research or scientific journal to take notes from. He couldn’t do this. 

“Do you… do you not want her?” for once, Gina sounded scared. 

Did he? Did he want Bethany? He didn’t want her gone, not anymore. It wasn’t that simple now. He didn’t want the child dead, he didn’t want her growing up under someone else’s care, if she was anything like him, she would need a form of understanding normal people wouldn’t be able to give her. But, would he give it to her? could he? There were too many variables, too many possibilities for what was and what could be. It wasn’t a matter of want really, he didn’t think it could be that simple. 

“I don’t want her somewhere else” was the best he could give her. As close to an answer as he could get. It was half a truth, at the very least.

Gina stayed quiet, in his mind’s eye he could see her nodding, frowning at him. She thought for a long time, long enough for him to start succumbing to exhaustion and feel his consciousness blessedly slip away. Of course, he could never have what he wanted.

“Well, if she’s not going anywhere and neither are you, then I guess you’re gonna have to get your shit together and raise that kid.”She made it sound so offendingly simple; get clean, get a job, raise a child. As if it was easy, as if he knew how. 

“Alone.” And that was the problem, wasn’t it? Isabel was dead, cold, underground. Whatever happened now, was for him to solve and him alone.

“You don’t have to be.” Gentle, hesitant Gina made her comeback. Given the change in acoustics, she was looking down now. “Sabel was my family, all I had, I would like to be a part of her daughter’s life.”

“You already are, perhaps more than me.” His stomach knotted, aching. 

“That’s just now, later it will be better.” His disbelief must have been clearer than he’d intended, for Gina leaned forward and insisted on his so-far-unknown abilities. “You’ll make it Sherlock, and we’ll help if you let us.”

“Have to be alive for later first.” His head was still pounding, his lungs tickled, his ribs ached, his skin burned, all of him was covered in sweat and the shakes were still relatively violent, “it doesn’t feel like a promising prospect at the moment.”

He presumed Gina was conjuring some kind of a pep talk, a speech for him to believe and trust and move on. Thankfully, he was saved from whatever sappy concoction she would've come up with by a knock at the door. Sherlock looked at her now, Jack was the only other person in the flat, and he was meant to be calming the wailing infant. Clearly rather unsuccessfully. Gina’s mouth tightened around the corners and she got up from her spot on the floor, opening the door. And there, on the other side of the wooden barrier, stood Jack, a baby squirming baby in his arms.

“Hey, sorry but she won’t stop crying” he laughed nervously, the way most idiots usually did when under some perceived threat. He looked at Sherlock directly, his smile twisting down on the edges. “I think she wants you.”

“Why would she?” the child hardly saw him at all, for however long she had been on the planet he had been mostly inebriated in some form or another. How the small creature could want Sherlock was beyond him. 

“She knows you, you’re her dad.” Gina’s smile was far too innocent to be anything but

double-edged. What could she possibly get from making him carry an unhappy person, no matter how small they were. Besides, he was laying on the bathroom floor for a reason.

“I’m not really in any position to be carrying infants.”

“Just give it a try, please?” the smile disappeared almost completely from Jack’s face, a grimace appearing in its stead, “I’m pretty desperate here.”

He looked at the baby carefully, noting any minute changes since the last time he’d seen her properly. Her hair was an inch longer, her nails seemed thicker and her skin was not nearly as dry as it had been before coming here. He was convinced the moment she felt him, the girl would break into a panic, clearly, he had been terrible at taking care of her. But if the other two needed to witness a catastrophe of biblical proportions to understand his inability, then what could he do but oblige? Sherlock nodded, sighing as he sat back up, taking his time to breathe in between movements whenever his muscles screamed at the strain. Once he had found a viable position, with half of his body weight resting between the wall and the bathtub, he extended his arms expectantly, waiting for the bundle of joy to take its rightful place in them. Jack came in slowly, separating the baby from his chest as he walked until he was directly in front of Sherlock; he kneeled and passed Beth over, keeping her small head supported. He seemed to inspect their position, looking for any dangers, and at finding none, he stepped back.

Sherlock braced himself for the explosion, for the earth-shaking wails, for his chance to scream along to their make-believe horror movie. But it didn’t come. The small human in his arms hardly seemed to notice the change at all. He took the opportunity to look at her once more, head to toe. He took in her growing black hair, the thin nose and the tiny fists. Oddly, she reminded him a great deal of Isabel, and not only because he knew that nose would grow to be just like hers. There’s something else there, something innate. Isabel would have gushed over her had she had the chance. He wondered what his own mother would say if she would gush or push them away. Given the lack of contact so far, he guessed he had his answer. He hadn’t wanted to be like his parents, to ricochet between indifference and suffocation. He had wanted to be better. He wondered if he still could be; it sounded terribly unlikely.

Ready to give up the experiment and hand her back to Jack, Sherlock started separating the baby from him, this, however, seemed to be unacceptable for Bethany. She shifted, her bright blue eyes opening to stare at him, the same piercing gaze that had made him bring them here. She seemed to take him in, her cries lowering in both frequency and intensity the longer she looked at him. For the first time since their move, he took a deep breath and looked back at her, looked her in the eyes, and stayed that way; his heart flipped inside his chest at the very sigh of his daughter. She kept up her crying, now half-hearted and Sherlock could feel Gina smiling at the opposite side of the room. It seemed a point had been made after all, just not his. He swallowed, breathed in, careful not to move her, and spoke.

“Hello,” his voice shook. Sherlock looked down at the baby again, his baby. The Child with his eyes. “My name’s Sherlock, I don’t think I ever told you… I’m your father, or dad I suppose, I’m told that is a far more recurring name for the male counterpart in a child’s upbringing. Whatever you want.”

Slowly, but surely, Beth stopped crying, settling in her father’s arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! Hoped you enjoyed this part and if you haven't had a look at the other parts in the series then I hope you will and you'll enjoy it too.  
> I promise the story will start moving a bit faster from now on.


End file.
